Raise Salaries or Lower the Bar?

Posted on by under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

So, it seems some people have decided that ‘too much’ education is a bad thing.  Imagine, if you will, that your state has a shortage of teachers.  Your state also has the lowest wages for teachers in the nation.  Now, the common-sense solution here is to offer incentives to qualified teachers, raise the salaries to be competitive, right?  Well, Arizona has decided to go a different route – lower the requirements for becoming a teacher!  An excerpt from an article in Salon …

“Last week, just days after the Arizona legislature passed the most expansive school voucher law anywhere in the nation, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law another education measure decreeing that public school teachers are no longer required to have a college degree of any kind before being hired. Arizona teachers will only have to be enrolled in college in order to begin teaching the state’s public school students.

 The law, SB 1159, was pushed by conservatives on the grounds that Arizona has faced a severe teacher shortage for the last six years, which, by this winter, left 26% of teacher vacancies unfilled and nearly 2,000 classrooms without an official teacher of record. That shortage has led supporters of the bill, including business interests such as the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, to claim that loosening teacher credential requirements will help fill those staffing gaps. Opponents of the bill, however, point to the fact that Arizona has the lowest teacher salaries in the country, even while boasting a budget surplus of more than $5 billion.”

But Arizona isn’t alone … Christopher Rufo, the activist who blames the teaching of history and facts for all the evils in the nation …

“… called for state lawmakers to rescind requirements that teachers hold education degrees, claiming that masters programs in education only exposed future teachers to left-wing ideology. Instead, Rufo argued, public schools should only require bachelor’s degrees for new hires, predicting that in time school officials would come to view applicants with advanced degrees as suspicious: Don’t ‘hire the ones with the masters, because those are the crazies.’”

So, just to be clear on the direction education is taking today in much of the country … we’re not going to teach our children facts about the history of the nation … things like slavery, white settler’s slaughter of the Indigenous People, Jim Crow, systemic racism, Japanese-American internment camps and more.  We won’t require that the people teaching our children are actually knowledgeable and educated themselves.  We will keep teacher’s salaries low so as not to attract the best and the brightest.  We will allow schools to impose one specific religious belief on all students, regardless of their own beliefs or lack thereof.  Oh yeah, sounds like a perfect recipe for what some would call “American Exceptionalism.”  Just remember, though, that ‘exceptional’ can take on a variety of meanings … there’s an “exceptionally well-done job”, but then there’s also “exceptionally stupid.”

29 thoughts on “Raise Salaries or Lower the Bar?”

  1. Pingback: Raise Salaries or Lower the Bar? – My IT Academy

  4. It boggles my mind why anyone would do this. Whether one has children or not, educating the next generation of people who will contribute to society’s growth and wellbeing starts with ensuring good qualified teachers. Give teachers a salary that attracts the best to the field!

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    • I think that may be what the politicians are hoping — that parents will either send their children to private schools, or homeschool them. I’m really surprised, though, to hear that you have the same problems in Germany! But surely the teachers are still expected to have full degrees? xx

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  8. Whgen things cchange and the fight back starts please, please let me be he one to tell Doug Ducey he’s too thick to make the grade and is now surplus to requirements. All teachers are to get a minimum 50% pay increase across the board Teachers with a Masters in History may get more if they agree to actually teach the subject properly. All voucher schools will have their Government funds rescinded if it does not teach a broad base of religious beliefs with total freedom.
    Cwtch

    Liked by 2 people

    • Okay, David … you’ve got yourself a job! You will be appointed to explain to Ducey why he is going to fade back into oblivioun and announce how things will proceed. You’re got the right ideas, for sure. I have many friends who are teachers and I know they are underpaid, overworked, and these days even have to buy certain supplies out of their own pockets. And that’s in states that pay better than Arizona!
      Cwtch

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  9. Pingback: RAISE SALARIES OR LOWER THE BAR ? |jilldennison.com | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

  10. if the state has a 5 million dollar surplus, surely they can see fit to provide teachers a more adequate sallary for the job they have to do. It has always infuriated me that athletes and hollywood celebrities make millions while teachers don’t make a lot of money. I think a good part of this discrepancy is because of the cultural priorities. people value entertainment over the education of their children and yes, i know that some of that money, at least in athletics, comes form corporat sponsorships. Perhaps if businessed partnered with school in a similar way to sponsor teachers, the salaries could be higher. if schools wouldn’t pay superintendends 6 figure salaries for the work they don’t do, that money could be reallocated for the people in the trenches. What do you say?

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  11. There is neither a face nor a palm in existence that is large enough to accurately express the facepalm within my soul.

    All this is happening because some white folks are scared about losing their majority status in America. We’re going to end up with an apartheid government if it’s not stopped.

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    • I fully agree … this is beyond even a facepalm, beyond a dropped jaw, beyond words. As I told Keith, at first I thought the article was surely satire, but when I started digging, I was speechless with what I found.

      We are headed in that direction, for sure. And it seems that some folk are perfectly content with something akin to apartheid, some would even happily revert to the days of Jim Crow, or even further back. WHY??? I am helpless to understand it. Sigh.

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